King of Slaves (Jenna's Story) (The Slave Series Book 5) (29 page)

“Do you do this often? I mean go out by yourself?” she asked.

“Sometimes.”

“I thought you always needed a whole team of security guards with you.”

Kioni kept his eyes on the road, nervous and tempted to hold on to the oh-shit handle.

Maybe we shouldn’t be talking while she’s driving. It’s better if she concentrates.

“Are you ignoring me?”

Forced to either answer or fess up to the fact that he was skeptical of a woman’s ability to drive, Kioni chose to answer. “Before the war, I would go out all the time, although my parents preferred for me to bring my security team, and I mostly did. During the war I was more restricted but lately I’m beginning to venture out on my own again.”
Not true – you’ve never been completely alone, you’ve always been with Zurry or other men.

“That makes me happy. I thought you were one of those royals who lives in a golden cage.”

He didn’t comment on that; instead he gave her directions. “Go straight ahead and when you pass the bank I want you to take a right.”

“Which bank.”

“That bank… go right… now!”

“I’m turning, I’m turning. Christ, could you tell me a bit sooner in case I have to change lanes or something?”

“Go two stops and then make a u-turn and after that keep left.”

“God, you’re a bossy GPS.”

“I’m not bossy, I’m leading you the right way.”

“But in a bossy way… Carina would have said it like this, make a u-turn and then keep to your left.” Jenna’s voice was almost fruity.

“Who is Carina?” Kioni asked confused.

“My GPS at home.”

“Your GPS has a name?”

“Of course. I named the male voice Frank and the female Carina. That way, when they lead me astray I can yell at them by name.”

“You yell at your GPS?”

Jenna gave him a sideways glance. “Don’t tell me you’ve never yelled at your GPS.”

“This is where you make the u-turn.” Kioni turned in his seat and pointed back. “You just missed it, I told you to make a u-turn.”

“I’m sorry, I got distracted. And I couldn’t make a sudden break with the car behind us being so close.”

He bit his inner cheek, trying to avoid saying something about less talking and more focus on driving. “Just continue to the next intersection.”

“Fine, but there’s no need to be angry about it.”

“I’m not angry about it.”
I’m just incredibly stressed about sitting in the passenger seat with a female driver.

To Jenna’s credit she followed the rest of his instructions to a tee, and they arrived safely at the lake where he had made the arrangements.

“Oh wow… look at this, it’s gorgeous,” Jenna exclaimed as they slowly rolled down the gravel path; the small forest they had been driving through opened up to show a breathtaking view of a lake so still that the mountains on the other side, and the blue sky above, reflected in the water like a mirror.

“This is Lake Boula,” Kioni said with pride. His country might not be the richest in the world but they had nature that took your breath away.

“I love it.”

He pointed ahead. “Park over there by the cabin.”

Jenna did as told and they got out to admire the surroundings.

“Do you come here often?” she asked.

“I used to, but it’s been too long since I was last here.”

A soft melody was playing from the cabin and Jenna spun around. “What is that music?”

“I’ve arranged a light meal for us and some music to accompany it.” Kioni swung his hand toward the cabin. “Ladies first.”

Exactly as he had instructed, a table had been placed on the porch with two chairs and a red and white checkered tablecloth.

Two glasses and a bottle of wine stood waiting for them and on the floor stood a small speaker that was the source of the music they had heard. 

“Nice.” Jenna grinned and stepped up on the porch.

“Take a seat and just give me a second,” Kioni instructed and went inside the cabin. When he came back he carried a selection of tapas-inspired dishes that had been prepared for them.

“Do you need help?” Jenna asked.

“No, I’ve got it.” This time he brought out fresh bread, olives, and some large green grapes.

“There’s no one to serve on us tonight – I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted it to be just you and me, Jenna.”

Originally he had planned for a fine dinner by the lake and a trio of musicians playing calming, romantic songs, but after overhearing her conversation this morning with Alex he had scaled it down. He would show her that he could be a regular Joe, for a night. Hopefully that would make her see him as less intimidating.

Two hours later Kioni and Jenna were walking hand in hand with their bare feet in the water. The sun was low on the horizon and Kioni felt genuinely happy with the way the evening was progressing.

Taking things down to basic had been the perfect strategy and made Jenna relax and enjoy herself. He loved the sound of her easy laughter and couldn’t understand how time with Jenna could fly by so quickly without him noticing. Normally he was restless and easily bored, but not around her. But then again, everything with Jenna was different; she challenged his way of thinking, of reasoning, and often made arguments so solid that he had to consider if he might be wrong.

“I love hanging out with you, Jenna.”

She grinned. “Ditto… who would have thought that behind all that arrogance there was someone as amazing as you?”

Kioni didn’t think twice; he had prayed for a romantic moment like this. He seized the moment. Not caring that his pants were getting wet, he fell down on one knee and took her hand. “Jenna, please make me the happiest man in the world and become my wife.”

CHAPTER 26

Say It!

Jenna

Brown eyes filled with love and admiration were shining up at her. “Jenna, please make me the happiest man in the world and become my wife.”

She took a sharp intake of air. “Kio… I…”

He waited but when she didn’t continue he whispered, “Say it, Jenna. Please say yes.”

She wet her lips, feeling her hands tremble and her heart gallop. Her indecision made his brown eyes flare with uncertainty.

He bowed his head and pressed a kiss to her hand, before his eyes met hers again. “I love you, Jenna.”

I love you too
… It was right there on the tip of her tongue, but so were all the damn but-this-and-but-that things that her fearful heart was warning her about.
Way to ruin the most romantic moment of my life.

If she hadn’t been so focused on Kioni in front of her, she might have seen the danger soon enough to react, but when a shot sounded and Kioni pulled her down in a reflex, Jenna whipped her head around and saw a man standing only twenty feet away with a gun pointing straight at them.

“Are you hurt?” Kioni muttered low and tried to push her behind him.

“No,” she whispered.

“We have to get to the car,” Kioni instructed her in a whisper.

Jenna couldn’t see how that was possible with the man between them and the car.

He was waving the pistol and shouting in Spiri.

“He knows who I am,” Kioni murmured and raised both palms, talking in a calming tone to the man. 

More than ever, Jenna wished she understood Spiri, but all she could do was watch the man come closer and shout at Kioni while waving his gun around. He looked like a dirty homeless person with long tangled hair, yellow teeth, wild eyes, and clothes that were at least four sizes too big for him.

Kioni spoke again and this time Jenna sensed anger in his voice. He spread out his arms as a wall in front of Jenna, and from the way the crazy man was shouting she understood that it had something to do with her.

She didn’t get a chance to react before the wild man had moved even closer and gestured wildly with his gun to her, shouting the same thing over and over.

“What is he saying?”

Kioni spoke through gritted teeth. “He used to be a slave and worked at the palace, that’s how he recognized the car. He says his girlfriend was a slave too and that she had to service my soldiers against her will. Now he wants to take you to show me how it feels to share.”

Jenna felt sick to her stomach and jumped when the crazy man shot a bullet close to Kioni’s leg as a warning.

“He says he’ll kill you if I don’t step away from you.”

Jenna was shaking and tears were running down her cheeks. “Do you think he’ll let us go if he gets his way?” she asked.

Kioni turned his head and shot her an angry stare. “Don’t you even think about sacrificing yourself for me.”

The situation was growing more and more tense every second. Jenna made herself small behind Kioni, who still refused to move away from her.

When she stuck her head up to peek over his shoulder the crazy man fired a shot that was clearly intended for her but missed. Kioni’s hand flew up to his ear; it was bleeding from the place the bullet had grazed.

It had been such a magical evening, with just the two of them before it took this awful turn – and now they were going to die at the hands of an angry man who had suffered as a slave.

I wish I hadn’t come to Spirima…
Jenna thought and then a small voice said,
But then I wouldn’t have known Kioni.
With adrenaline pumping through her veins, and her life hanging by a fine thread, it was suddenly easy to acknowledge how she felt about the man shielding her from harm. He would die before he allowed anyone to harm her; he was proving that right now.

All her fears over what could go wrong between them were overruled by one dominant thought:
Only death can truly separate us. Anything else is just a detail to work through. As long as we are breathing we can find a way to make it work. I want to make it work!

Just as Jenna realized her answer to Kioni’s marriage proposal, the crazy man fired his weapon and shot Kioni down in front of her. He fell to the ground, silent and still. Her instinct was to throw herself down on top of him, to make sure he didn’t get shot again, but they were in shallow water and Kioni’s head was partly under. She scrambled to get him out of the water and pulled his head into her lap, frantically brushing away the sand that was blocking his nose.

It was hard to see anything clearly with tears springing from her eyes, and she didn’t even try to dampen her screams of fear and panic.

When the crazy man grabbed her under her arms and dragged her away from Kioni, she screamed and kicked as much as she could. Her eyes were on Kioni.
Is he breathing?
Where was he hit?
She didn’t know.

A stank of unwashed clothes and dirt hit her senses when the crazy guy stopped dragging her and threw himself down on top of her. He got her on her back and used his superior height and strength to unzip her jeans and started to tug them down. Luckily for her they were wet and clingy from kneeling in the water with Kioni, so he gave up and turned her around, satisfied with leaving the jeans pulled just below her ass.

The growls and the sounds of him unzipping his own pants made Jenna throw herself forward trying to get away. She didn’t make it far before she was punished with a hard pull on her hair that made her sure he had torn out whole chunks. 

She kicked back as a wild horse would, and ignored all the reminders in her head telling her not to fight, as it would give her a bigger chance of survival.

This guy had shot and possibly killed Kioni, and she would
never
let him have her.

His raspy breathing in her ears was followed by a crushing feeling when the large man pressed her down with all his weight. Jenna screamed until his weight made it impossible for her to breathe. She was literally being squashed but at least he wasn’t raping her at the moment; maybe he planned to do that after she was dead.

Her small quick gasps for air made her think of a fish on land.
I want to live. I want to live. I need to live.
With a last desperate attempt at survival Jenna tried to turn her body around to push him off her, and succeeded halfway. She managed to get her head free of him and could take a breath of air, but with his large torso pressing down on her lungs it hurt. “Why isn’t he moving?” she thought and then she registered movement by the water. From her position on the ground she couldn’t see Kioni but someone was running… running toward her.

“Jenna, Jenna.”

I know that voice.

When the large man reached her he tore away her attacker as if the man was nothing but a small doll.

Zurry… it’s Zurry. Oh, thank God!

“Where are you hurt?” he cried out as his hands roamed her face and head.

“I’m not hurt,” she tried to say but when she saw his hands full of blood she wasn’t so sure.

“Kio got shot,” she whimpered.

“I know, the medical team are on their way.”

“Is he dead?”

Zurry shook his head. “No, but he might be if he doesn’t get help soon. Can you walk?”

Still taking deep breaths with lungs greedy for fresh air, Jenna got up with Zurry’s help and saw that the reason the crazy man hadn’t moved atop of her was the knife sticking out of the back of his head.

She pulled her pants up and let Zurry support her to Kioni, who lay on his back where she had left him.

Minutes felt like hours before the sirens from the ambulance finally sounded in the distance. The thought that she would never get a chance to answer his marriage proposal made her sob and shake.